Issue with Curl

I am new to Rails so have been working my way through the 'Agile Web Development with Rails 4' book to learn, but have become stuck because curl is not being recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Couldn't seem to find anything on this forum, the books forum or on the internet about it so it is most likely something stupid that I am doing!

I am using the jNode command window on a windows 8 operating system.

I have found that I do have curl installed as part of the gem files at C:\RailsInstaller\Ruby1.9.3\lib\ruby\gems\1.9.1\gems\curb-0.8.5\lib Is it possible that when I am typing the curl command into my command prompt within my projects site it cant find this gemfile? i.e do I need to specify a different address?

curl is installed by default in most *nix OS's (OSX, Mint, Ubuntu etc..) so it was probably an oversight not to mention that if running on a Windows OS then you would need to install it. Having said that you are expected to have git installed and curl is included as part of git installation so check that Git is running properly before you do anything as drastic as installing curl manually.

You can get curl manually from here http://curl.haxx.se/download.html or you can install cygwyn which gives you a kind of linux console clone, or you could ditch windows in favour of a decent, much faster, much more stable OS like Linux Mint (Oh! And totally free!) , Sorry that was very tongue in cheek but you will find a Linux OS a lot more friendly than windows when it comes to software development which is why a lot of Rails developers too reliant on windows to ditch entirely will either set up a dual boot or will install a Linux Virtual Machine to develop Rails with.

Hhmm! It's possibly related to jNode command window but I am not at all familiar with the intricacies of Windows 8 I stopped using Windows a few years ago. Possibly someone else in here might be able to shed some light on it but in the meantime here are some things to check

First of all check that git will push to the outside world. Git uses curl under the hood to do it's remote activities. If that works then you know curl is set up and configured properly and you just need to set up the correct PATH environment for the shell you are using.

Alternatively you could just do a search through your HDD for curl.exe and supply the full path in the command line.

I know my last reply was a little tongue in cheek but I am serious, by not using a *nix environment to develop your Rails app you are potentially missing out on a lot of goodies plus it is also good to be familiar with the environment that you will be hosting in (Please don't use a Windows OS as a production server, it's just not up to the task) and Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop is such a nice O.S. to use for developing in

Hopefully someone with windows 8 familiarity will pop in and point you in the right direction if you have no joy with my above suggestions.